The ELIA Academy will be a truly multidisciplinary conference, also thanks to ELIA’s collaboration with AEC (Association Européenne des Conservatoires Académies de Musique et Musikhochschulen).

We look forward to bringing the ELIA Academy to Stuttgart!

"Stuttgart is a city with interesting attractions, a world-renowned ballet, excellent cultural and sporting highlights, diverse leisure and accommodation possibilities and an international variety theatre. Charmingly situated in one of the largest wine-growing regions in Germany, Stuttgart impresses, on the one hand with its wonderful panoramic view, beautiful squares, splendid castles and palaces and buildings with diverse architectural styles, and, on the other with its diverse cultural offering." (Source)

Theme

The theme of the 9th ELIA Academy is digitalisation. Many students (and teachers) are embracing new forms of digital arts and digital practices — these new, blended practices stretch our conceptions of creativity. This topic offers the chance to debate, analyse and reflect on the challenges and opportunities across all artistic disciplines and teaching approaches.

In addition to keynote speeches, the programme will feature interactive presentations focused on a number of common keywords, each connected to a specific aspect of digitalisation. Delegates will be able to navigate their own digital path through the Academy by exploring one or several of the following topics:

Emotional experience / immersion

Critical attention / scepticism

Societal impact

Developing digital pedagogies

Digital fluencies

Research / methodologies

Storytelling / narrative

History / foundations / roots

Programme

Wednesday 25 September 2019

Location: University of Music and Performing Arts Stuttgart (HMDK Stuttgart)

Practical Information

City of Stuttgart

Stuttgart is a city with many attractions, a world-renowned ballet, excellent cultural and sporting highlights, diverse leisure and accommodation possibilities and an international variety theatre. Charmingly situated in one of the largest wine-growing regions in Germany, Stuttgart impresses, on the one hand with its wonderful panoramic views, beautiful squares, splendid castles, palaces and architecture, and, on the other, with its diverse cultural offering.

Photo by Thomas Niedermüller

Stuttgart is the capital city of the south-western federal state of Baden-Württemberg, which was founded in 1952, has over 600,000 inhabitants and is the core of one of the strongest industrial regions in the federal state of Germany, the Central Neckar region.

Baden-Württemberg's state capital is gaining increasing importance in Europe. With its globally oriented research and economical structure, the international character of its population, as well as a variety of consular representatives, Stuttgart has the best conditions to play a decisive role in the top group of European metropolitan regions.

Hosts

Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design

The Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design (ABK Stuttgart), with a history extending back over 250 years, is one of the largest art academies in Germany. With 20 academic study programmes and almost 50 full-time professors in Architecture, Design, Fine Arts, Art Education, Art History as well as Conservation and Restoration, the institution provides a broad spectrum of educational and research opportunities to approximately 900 students. ABK Stuttgart is one of the few art academies in Germany awarding both doctoral and post-doctoral degrees in Art and Design, alongside postgraduate degrees.

One of the Academy's trademarks is its interdisciplinarity. They offer cross-departmental courses and seminars as well as joint projects between staff and students from every study programme. A second trademark is their more than 30 professional workshops, where students and staff experiment and realise projects under expert supervision. ABK also has a beautiful library with a wide range of national and international publications, various exhibit rooms, a cinema and a historical theatre. ABK Stuttgart is only a few minutes away from Stuttgart Central Station by public transport and is located next to the UNESCO World Heritage buildings by Le Corbusier and the famous Weissenhofsiedlung.

Photo by Martin Lutz

State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart

Founded in 1857, the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart (HMDK Stuttgart) is the oldest and , with almost 800 students, also the biggest University of Music in Baden-Wurttemberg. Located along Stuttgart’s “Culture Mile”, the university is very important to Stuttgart and the surrounding region, not only as a university but also as a concert promoter and cultural centre.

The institution offers a wealth of subjects and in addition to piano, organ and singing, students can also study all orchestral instruments, composition, conducting (of orchestra and choir), guitar, harp and elementary music pedagogy (EMP). Musicology and the theory of music round-off their comprehensive range of practical subjects on offer in Stuttgart and all of these subjects can be studied in either the artistic or music pedagogical courses. HMDK also offers school music and church music. Additionally, students can complement their studies with time spent at the orchestral academy of RSO Stuttgart. For musicology and music pedagogy the university has the right to confer doctoral degrees and award post-doctoral (professorial) qualifications.

With respect to the performing arts (opera school, theatre, visual theatre – puppetry and animation, spoken arts) the university benefits from having its own theatre (Wilhelma Theater), which dates back to 1840. HMDK also operates an opera studio in cooperation with the Staatsoper Stuttgart in order to promote vocal training; and an acting studio in conjunction with the Staatsschauspiel Stuttgart and several other theatres in Baden-Württemberg offer students a means of gaining practical experience.

Annually, there are about 500 public concerts in the aesthetically pleasing university building with its imposing, 50m high tower in the centre of the state capital Stuttgart. The university accommodates three concert halls with up to 500 seats. About 85,000 visitors per year attend these events.

A few more of the university’s important differentiating features include the unique collection of 11 organs, a technically well-equipped studio for electronic music, and the only existing figure theatre course in the former West German states.

Photo by Wolfgang Silveri

Thank you again to delegates and hosts of the ELIA Academy 2019. Click here to see photos from Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3

Past Editions of the ELIA Academy (formerly known as Teachers' Academy)

Plenary session: History / Foundations / Roots

The session on Thursday afternoon will provide the overview of the development of digitality in higher arts education, discussed by Olia Lialina (Merz Akademie, Germany), Matti Ruippo (Tampere University of Applied Sciences, Finland) and Christa Sommerer (University of Art and Design Linz, Austria).

Break Out 1

Thursday 26 September
10:30 – 12:00

Break Out 1 features thematic sessions that explore digitality in teaching and learning in the arts around 5 different aspects of digital practices: emotional experience/immersion, societal impact, developing digital pedagogies, research/methodologies, storytelling/narrative. Presenters selected from the Call of Presentations for ELIA and AEC member institutions will showcase a diverse range of projects and presentations, such as workshops, case studies with discussions, performance-based presentations and papers. Delegates can choose one out of the 6 sessions to attend.

Session: EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE / IMMERSION

Creating.Communication.Circuit - Introducing virtual reality in teaching and music performances, specifically as is relevant to persons with autism
Matija Anđelković, Mirko Družijanić
University of Arts in Belgrade, Faculty of Music and Association Nebograd, Serbia

Interactive lecture using examples of virtual reality as a tool in teaching music to people with autism. Presenters (composer/music pedagogue and a programming team member) will show the results of ongoing research and include interactive improvising sessions. Delegates will have an opportunity to explore the teaching tool and discuss its possibilities.

Session: SOCIETAL IMPACT

Opera out of Opera: Audience development and new technologies
Dominique Dethier
Mozarteum University Salzburg, Austria

Opera out of Opera is an innovative project that aims to introduce younger generation to the world of Opera, outside theatres and concert halls.

In this talk two interdisciplinary art-science projects, both aiming to improve the way in which people consume and relate to online content and social network interactions will be discussed.

Session: DEVELOPING DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

Values in Software Development for Local Classrooms
Pierre Depaz
Film University Babelsberg Konrad Wolf, Germany

Multimodal is a digital tool that Depaz has designed and developed specifically for use in physical classrooms. This presentation will present both the research into the ethical values embedded in the design as feature set, and the development process of this usable tool for face-to-face learning and teaching.

The intermedia choreography of the digital classroom creates new situations for teaching and learning that share similarities with many late 20th century artistic practices. This lecture presents a series of projects/lectures involving the use of different digital and analogue media within varying institutional settings.

For some time now, performing art teachings and production have been considered distant from technology and advanced networking services. This has been proven Incorrect since the beginning of the 21st century, when we first started to explore how the two worlds could benefit one from the other, via a series of meetings and workshops (Network Performing Arts Production Workshops) and, later, the development of specific, advanced tools like LoLa (Low Latency advances streaming system). Now, teachers and artists in the area have new unprecedented possibilities to interact, teach and also create new forms of art, using these advanced tools. Project like SWING aim to make the teachers and students more "digitally aware" in the performing arts and also helps them to introduce technology into their daily life.

Session: DEVELOPING DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

Glen and Boehm explore the affordances of mobile devices in learning environments. Their work focuses on enabling new pedagogies to emerge through co-creativity between students and academics in art practice and performing arts. They also address data management and privacy concerns impacting the wider use of mobile devices in higher education.

In this talk, Axelsson, Kroger and Soldenhoff present the digital environment and philosophy. They share the approaches and best practices. Let’s go down a ZHdK exploration and walk through the E-Learning Jungle.

Session: RESEARCH / METHODOLOGIES

Digital Technologies and Artistic Research at the IEM, Graz
Marko Ciciliani
University of Music and Performing Arts Graz, Austria

The Institute for Electronic Music and Acoustics (IEM) of the University of Music and Performing Arts Graz is an active player in the field of Artistic Research (AR). Since digital technologies are inseparably entwined with the history of the institute it has become necessary to critically analyse the implications that the use of technology entails when applied in the field of AR.

Technology is ever advancing and we are on the verge of entering a new era in which we will have to share our lives, and loves maybe, with intelligent machines. Do robots dream of studying arts and how would that look? In this presentation, Pinna will argue that Speculative Design is a powerful tool to help define alternative narratives to mainstream political and economic perspectives.

Session: STORYTELLING / NARRATIVE

"The Digital Wunderkammer" (cabinet of wonders) is the most recent in a series of projects (both with undergraduate design students and in presenter's personal research) on the access to digital archives and collections through Virtual Reality. In this iteration, students have explored the history and idea of the “Wunderkammer” as a starting point for the design of the interactive, spatial presentations within VR of such a "Kammer", filled with their own collection of digital curiosities. The results of this project will be presented to the delegates.

Ancient Art meets New Media: The potential of Blended Learning as an element of continuation within higher education of performance art – an experiment in the training of oral storytellers
Ragnhild A. Mørch
Berlin University of the Arts, Germany

In Ancient Art meets New Media, the Berlin Career College explores the possibilities of using Blended Learning in the training of oral storytellers. Can digital tools be implemented in the education of live-performers, when the performance itself depends on real-life meetings of teller and listeners?

Break Out 2

Thursday 26 September
14:00 – 15:45

Break Out 2 features thematic sessions that explore digitality in teaching and learning in the arts around 4 different aspects of digital practices: developing digital pedagogies, digital fluencies, storytelling/narrative. Presenters selected from the Call of Presentations for ELIA and AEC member institutions will showcase a diverse range of projects and presentations, such as workshops, case studies with discussions, performance-based presentations and papers. Delegates can choose one out of the 3 sessions to attend.

​Session: DEVELOPING DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

How Videos Can Help to Enhance Professionality in Teaching and Learning
Christiane Lenord, Katja Büchli Weiss
Stuttgart Academy of Art and Design, State University of Music and the Performing Arts, Germany

Two different approaches of using videos of educational settings in pre-service teacher training (fine arts and music) will be presented, experienced and discussed.

Session: DIGITAL FLUENCIES

This is a workshop where creative competences are reflected, based on the results obtained in The Creative Decoding Tool (CDT). CDT is an online test that permits mapping the creative competences of students and design professionals through a questionnaire. Delegates will be able to disclose their most important creative competences and get a graphic visualization of the results.

Conceptualizing the networked academy through our digital practices
David White
University of the Arts London, United Kingdom

Using the "Visitors and Residents" mapping activity, participants will conceptualize the academy in the digital era in the context of their own digital practices (from email to VR). Furthermore, they will discuss the implications for teaching, learning and creative practice.

Session: STORYTELLING / NARRATIVE

The ability to move between genres and technologies is, in a digital age, essential for writers. It might seem that no single model of creativity can help. The multimodal model of creativity, which this paper outlines, enables effective and productive negotiation of the wealth of affordances new media technologies provide. Check out the book at this link. Listen to Josie Barnard's Digital Future here.

“Look Around. It Is All VR”: Speculating On and Creating Critical Content for Immersive Storytelling Tools in a University Lab Environment
Ágnes Karolina Bakk
Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design Budapest, Hungary

As the immersive storytelling formats are still a novelty, this presentation focuses on a plan how in a university framework we can get prepared for the research and experimentation with new media tools such as VR or interactive digital narrative authoring tools such as e.g. Twine.

Write it together
Franziska Nyffenegger
Zurich University of the Arts, Switzerland

How often do you write by hand? How do you use digital tools when writing? How often do you write together with others? And what about your students? In this workshop, delegates will exchange writing experiences, discuss writers’ attitudes and strategies, try out tools and methods – and write it together!

Break Out 3

Friday 27 September
09:30 – 11:00

Break Out 3 features thematic sessions that explore digitality in teaching and learning in the arts around 5 different aspects of digital practices: emotional experience/immersion, critical attention/scepticism, societal impact, developing digital pedagogies, digital fluencies. Presenters selected from the Call of Presentations for ELIA and AEC member institutions will showcase a diverse range of projects and presentations, such as workshops, case studies with discussions, performance-based presentations and papers. Delegates can choose one out of the 6 sessions to attend.

Session: EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE / IMMERSION

The transformative impact of technology on teaching: the case with the Music Paint Machine.
Luc Nijs
Ghent University, Belgium

Is educational technology really a “force of change?” Some say it is, others contest this idea. One of the arguments that it can be, is the potential impact of digital tools on how one teaches. Such transformative impact on instrumental music teaching was provoked by the Music Paint Machine. This music educational technology allows a musician to make a digital painting by playing music and by moving on a coloured pressure mat.

Session: CRITICAL ATTENTION / SCEPTICISM

One must not forget that there are pitfalls, as software used can sometimes leave foreseeable, recognizable traces in a designer /artist’s production, when effects/filters are overused. Germen calls this as the ‘signature of the software’ and this fact may fade, reduce uniqueness that could be more easily obtained with analog processes.

Digital Anxiety Self-Help Group
Dorothée King
The University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland

Yesterday everything was better - We do want to go digital, but not too much.
How to overcome digital anxiety, get educators to leave their digital coziness of the 2000s and fully embrace the digital reality of now. The digital anxiety self-help group opens up a humorous debate on the pros and
cons of digitalization in our immediate work environments. Talking frankly about breaking rules and about do and don’ts in the digital realm will help delegates to overcome set states of mind about their digital abilities and preferences. Everybody will leave refreshed for a digital re-start.

Session: SOCIETAL IMPACT

The Zurich University of Arts has initiated a multidisciplinary research project involving sociological, theatrical and managerial studies.
The thesis of the project is that the so called “game-theatres” work as a (social) laboratory in which ‘trust-building processes’ between actors and audience can be realized and that this kind of format can be extended to innovation management. Delegates will enjoy a stimulating reflection on the influence of the digital culture in the theatre and the emergence of new narrative formats which rules and functioning could be useful and motivating for other fields.

Me(me), Myself and I
Gila Kolb, Helena Schmidt
Bern University of the Arts, Switzerland

In this workshop delegates deal with memes 1) theoretically, as a form of image as well as in relation to the concept of “poor Images” (Steyerl 2009) and 2) create memes themselves. The aim is to trace memes as an everyday-image practice and to understand it as non-affirmative critique. Furthermore, delegates will focus on the meme in the realm of (art) history. What is a meme, what is an art meme? Who uses them? What critical and what educational potential do they have? In a second step, delegates will discuss their use in teaching upon making their own art-memes.

Session: DEVELOPING DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

The increasing popularity of Mixed Reality (MR) and the easy access to software and hardware for creating projects using this technology leads to considerations on how to understand Its potential for the academic world and how to integrate it into students’ assignments/projects. This presentation will focus on methodologies and tools which allow the introduction of MR technologies to art students at different levels of
advancement, taking into account the project requirements and skills.

The presentation will chart the journey of designing a curriculum for a new School of Digital Arts (SODA) at Manchester Metropolitan University. Responding to creative industries that are in a constant state of flux, this new curriculum, designed through a series of short developmental “sprints”, has involved students, alumni, staff and external industry partners, from the creative, tech and business worlds, creating crossing disciplinary connections between art, design, business, sound and computing. This presentation will take the audience through the process of building a curriculum from scratch and show a new way to approach Higher Education in an art school, working in partnerships with the creative industries as co-creators. The presentation will be an introduction to how we can create curricula that is agile and responsive to change whilst working within institutional constraints.

This presentation will focus on the digital tools from a large EU-funded project, Wholodance, that are aimed at enriching dance and choreography. Wood and Cisneros will also present the large repository of motion capture files of ballet, contemporary, Greek folk dance and flamenco. This presentation will demonstrate two proof-of-concept tools, the Annotation tool and the Blending Engine, that have emerged from the Wholodance project and have been presented to different groups – students, artists and choreographers. The feedback received shows that these tools are useful for enriching the learning and creating process and offer an opportunity to deepen engagement with technique and performance requirements. Presenters will share insights from the research process and outcomes of the evaluation.

Session: DEVELOPING DIGITAL PEDAGOGIES

FabLabs at art academies can break open disciplinary silos and enable students and teachers alike to acquire digital competences in a highly motivating, community-driven setting. This presentation showcases the possibilities of how FabLabs can enable students and teaching staff to learn and work collaboratively with physical digital fabrication tools and electronics and acquire digital and “making” competencies in a community-oriented and supporting setting.

The digital in art and design meet biochemistry
Natalie Weinmann
Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design, Germany

In this presentation, the delegates will experience what happens when biochemists and designers start a creational process together. When the playful and creative approaches of designers and the structured hypothesis-driven procedures of scientists meet, potentials are set free where new phenomenon can be created and unique outcomes are possible.

Session: DIGITAL FLUENCIES

Digital capital in action at universities of the arts
Priska Gisler, Anna Maria Hipp
University of the Arts Bern, Switzerland

The lecture performance will be based on a SNSF-study looking at the connections between the digital transformation of society and the social opportunities of art students. We ask questions such as where did art students learn their digital practices, and how do these practices impact their student selves?

Coding for everyone: Democratization of the power of digital knowledge
Christine Goutrié
Weissensee Academy of Art Berlin, Germany

During the overall foundation year at the Weissensee school, all students from all subjects, are introduced to coding, algorithmic thinking and binary codes. Fine art and design students who had never before written one line of code before because they were told they are “not the type of people”, develop amazing results; for example building and programing an asphalt printer. The delegates will gain insight Into how basic digital concepts can be taught to a broad range of fine art and design students with almost no prior knowledge to the field within a very short time span.

Algorave

Presented by J Simon van der Walt, Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, United Kingdom

Experience ‘live-coding’ and explore your feelings about the digital through dancing. Join this social event held on Wednesday evening!

‘Live-coding’ is a practice where creative artists who work with computer code perform live, often producing music and/or visuals, with the audience typically able to watch the evolution of the code on a projected screen. ‘Algorave’ is a subgenre where the aim is to produce beat-driven music and/or visuals for dancing.

This presentation outlines current practice and research in the area of live-coded music and visuals, with particular reference to both educational contexts and the algorave scene. Delegates will have the opportunity to explore and express their understanding of digital practices in an embodied way through the medium of dance.

Night at the Kunstmuseum

On Thursday evening delegates are invited to join a reception at the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, including guided tours through both the permanent collection and the solo show "Scheize - Liebe - Sehnsucht" by Icelandic artist Ragnar Kjartansson.

As the child of two actors, Kjartansson grew up in the theatre in Reykjavík. He blurs the boundaries between visual art, literature, music, and the performing arts in his works and playfully links the different genres in his performances, which he develops with the aid of drawings, which also serve as the basis of his video installations and paintings.

The content of Kjartansson’s works refer to artist stereotypes and motifs from the Western culture of memory and knowledge. Hence, the video piece »Scenes from Western Culture« re-enacts idyllic scenes of everyday life, which, in a revelatory way, appear familiar, while in the painting series »Architecture and Morality« he alludes to the conflict over Israeli settlement construction. Kjartansson disrupts the seriousness of the historical and political events on which his works are based by engaging humour and pointed intensification. He uses variation, repetition, and loop, extended playing time, parody, and alienation as artistic strategies. They amplify or break the expression of intensive feelings of pain and melancholy. In the process, reality and fiction seamlessly merge into one another. More info

Delegates will also enjoy the late-night gig by the Akademische Betriebskappelle der ABK Stuttgart. The group consists of teachers and students of Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design and plays in the wide field of discourse-free popular music, somewhere between John Cage and Hansi Hinterseer. All songs are based on texts by the professors and students. The lyrics take the viewer on a journey full of ups and downs, creative abysses and hopeless highlights of artistic existence.

NEU NOW: What Happens Next?

NEU NOW, an initiative of ELIA, existed from 2009-2017 as a transdisciplinary art festival devoted to presenting the work of exceptional emerging artists across Europe.

Each year, students were nominated by institutions, shortlisted by international juries and selected and curated by the co-artistic directors. Both the specific characteristics and the interdisciplinary potential of arts disciplines were showcased through the dynamic presentation of exhibitions, performances, workshops, and artist talks which converged to offer new perspectives. It started as an itinerant festival presented in Vilnius, Tallinn, Nantes, Porto, Amsterdam and Glasgow and was then brought back to Amsterdam for the remaining three years.

After these nine successful editions, ELIA is excited to present the tenth and final edition to mark the closing of this NEU NOW chapter. This special edition will highlight one artist from each of the nine previous editions and share the story of their artistic career since taking part in the festivals.

At the end of the ELIA Academy 2019 on Friday 27 September, an installation showed past and present work from each artist, and a digital publication has been released.

Tour at Weissenhofmuseum (optional)

Delegates may join an optional 90-minute tour at Weissenhofmuseum on Friday 27 September in the afternoon. The tour includes the introduction into the subject of Weissenhofsiedlung, and a guided tour through house Le Corbusier and the settlement.

Please note that there are 40 places available for the tour on the first come, first serve basis. Once registering, the delegates can choose whether they would like to attend the tour.

The Weissenhofsiedlung is one of the most significant landmarks left by the movement known as "Neues Bauen”. The development was erected in 1927 as a residential building exhibition arranged by the City of Stuttgart and the Deutscher Werkbund. Working under the artistic direction of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, seventeen architects created an exemplary residential scheme for modern urban residents.

The architects participating in the exhibition - including Le Corbusier, Gropius, Mies van der Rohe, Scharoun and others - were known at that time only in circles devoted to the international avantgarde. Today, they are among the most notable masters of modern architecture. Numerous homes built by these architects can be found at the Weissenhof development, all in close proximity one to another, making this residential development one of the few of its kind around the world.

The ever-changing story of the Weissenhofsiedlung reflects the societal and cultural changes of the Twentieth Century. Largely shunned during the Third Reich and partly destroyed during World War II, the development was later approached with a lack of understanding for its precepts. It was only in 1958 that the Weissenhofsiedlung was enrolled in the register of historical monuments. The 75th anniversary of the Werkbund Exhibition at the Weissenhof provided new impetus. In 2002 it was possible for the City of Stuttgart to purchase Le Corbusier's semi-detached houses, in which to install the Weissenhof Museum.

Abhay Adhikari

Abhay Adhikari works globally with the private and public sector to develop digital innovation projects. This includes programmes for organisations such as the Guardian, Google and Nesta. He leads the Urban Sustainable Development Lab, which has been named one of UK’s 50 radical-thinking projects by the Observer newspaper. Abhay has a research background in biofeedback gaming from the music research centre (mrc) University of York. He has collaborated with an artist to conduct mindfulness workshops in Japan. In 2019 he is launching Culture Labs to foster social innovation led by the cultural sector. The first lab will run in Bilbao. Abhay speaks on digital culture at events such as FutureEverything, Battle of Ideas and TEDx.

Evert Hoogendoorn

Evert Hoogendoorn is a strategist and game designer at IJsfontein Interactive Media. He has been part of the game industry for over 20 years and was co-founder of the first game design program in Europe at the University of the Arts Utrecht.

He aims to make games that are not only entertaining, but have a positive and proven impact on people’s lives. He is mostly focused on the domains of medical care, - cure, mental health and education, but also worked for museums, NGO’s and corporates. To do so he works together closely with researchers from different universities and medical centers, often within academic constraints.

To effectively incorporate academic rigor with game development he is not only designing the games itself, but also the co-design strategies to better align the process of validation with the creative- and production strategies of games.

Evert Hoogendoorn has a background in education and theatre and combines his work at IJsfontein with the development of innovative educational solutions with the University of the Arts in Utrecht (HKU). There, he is program leader “ludodidactics” at the HKU College. Here he and his colleagues us game design principles to create innovative educational tools and learning experiences.

Daniel Martin Feige

Daniel Martin Feige is a professor of philosophy and aesthetics at the Stuttgart State Academy of Art and Design. He studied Jazz Piano in Amsterdam and Philosophy, Literary Studies and Psychology in Gießen and Frankfurt am Main. At the latter institution, he did his PhD and afterward his habilitation at the Free University Berlin, where he also worked as a research assistant in the collaborative research center 626, “Aesthetic Experience and the Dissolution of artistic limits”. His research and publications focus on the interrelation between Aesthetics and theoretical philosophy with a special emphasis on questioning the relation of singular arts and the philosophy of history and anthropology. He wrote a book on the Philosophy of Jazz (2014), The Aesthetics of Computer Games (2015) and the Philosophy of Design (2018) and is about to finish a book on human nature (fortc.).

Photo by Martin Lutz

Cornelia Sollfrank

Cornelia Sollfrank is an artist, researcher and university lecturer living in Berlin. Recurring subjects in her artistic and academic work both in and about digital cultures are artistic infrastructures, new forms of (political) self-organization, authorship and intellectual property, techno-feminist practice and theory. As a pioneer of Internet art, Cornelia Sollfrank built up a reputation with two central projects: the net.art generator – a web-based art-producing ‘machine’, and Female Extension – her famous hack of the first competition for Internet art. Her experiments with the basic principles of aesthetic modernism implied conflicts with its institutional and legal framework and led to her academic research. In her PhD “Performing the Paradoxes of Intellectual Property,” Cornelia investigated the increasingly strained relationship between art and copyright. In her follow-up artistic research project Giving What You Don’t Have she started to explore art projects that all contribute to the creation and maintenance of ‘digital commons.’ This led to her current research project ‘Creating Commons,’ based at the University of the Arts in Zürich. Her most recent performance À la recherche de l’information perdue is about gender stereotypes in the digital underground with the example of Wikileaks. Her book “Die schönen Kriegerinnen. Technofeministische Praxis im 21.Jahrhundert” (The beautiful warriors. Technofeminist Practice in the21st Century) was published in August 2018 with transversal texts, Vienna.

Felix Stalder

Felix Stalder is a professor for Digital Culture at the Zurich University of the Arts. His work focuses on the intersection of cultural, political and technological dynamics, in particular on new modes of commons-based production, control society, copyright and transformation of subjectivity. He not only works as an academic, but also a cultural producer, was a moderator of the mailing list, and member of World Information Institute in Vienna, as well the Technopolitics Working Group (both in Vienna). Among his recent publications are “Digital Solidarity” (PML & Mute 2014) and “The Digital Condition” Polity Press, 2018).

Jennifer Walshe

“The most original compositional voice to emerge from Ireland in the past 20 years” (The Irish Times) and “Wild girl of Darmstadt” (Frankfurter Rundschau), composer and performer Jennifer Walshe was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her music has been commissioned, broadcast and performed all over the world. She has been the recipient of fellowships and prizes from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, New York; the DAAD Berliner Künstlerprogramm, the Internationales Musikinstitut, Darmstadt and Akademie Schloss Solitude among others. Recent projects include Aisteach, a fictional history of avant-garde music in Ireland; EVERYTHING IS IMPORTANT, a work for voice, string quartet and film commissioned by the Arditti Quartet; and TIME TIME TIME, an opera written in collaboration with the philosopher Timothy Morton, which has been touring to critical acclaim. Walshe is currently Professor of Performance at the State University of Music and the Performing Arts Stuttgart.

The transport between the two venues on Thursday 26 September will be organised by ELIA and covered with registration fees.

Accommodation

Delegates are advised to book accommodation at the earliest convenience. ELIA has made pre-bookings for delegates at several hotels in the city centre.

For booking your accommodation please go to the following portal link.

At this portal, you will find more information about available hotels and pricing for your stay in Stuttgart.

The deadline for booking the accommodation is 25 August 2019. Any bookings after the deadline will depend on availability and on a first come, first served basis.

Travel info

Stuttgart can be reached easily from across the country and abroad.

By plane

An increasing number of European and International airlines provide direct flights to Stuttgart. Travelers arriving to Stuttgart Airport can easily get to the city centre by train. It runs from early morning to midnight; the interval between trains is 20 minutes. Train tickets are purchased in vending machines; they cost about 3,50€. It is important to validate the ticket before boarding the train.

By train

The Stuttgart Main Train Station is the junction of the international north-south and east-west stretches. Through the rail network (ICE, IC; InterRegio), Stuttgart is directly connected with 13 European capitals.